I've been a professional C, Perl, PHP and Python developer.
I'm an ex-sysadmin from the late 20th century.
These days I do more Javascript and CSS and whatnot, and promote UX and accessibility.
In my own software I try to avoid making long URLs in the first place.
There's no reason that something readable like https://mycoolsite.website/blog/2020/01/01/my-new-years-resolutions should be considered a "nightmare". If you're sharing a bit.ly URL with someone else, then you have to paste it to them or speak "doublyew, m for mother, no, EMMM I said, can you hear me?" the same as any random string.
And long strings with a million query parameters are usually deep links to things like search results which are inherently fragile. And speaking of fragile, you're adding an extra point of failure for no good reason.
When including the link on a page you control, you'll probably put the name of the destination page or something descriptive in as the text link, so that's not a problem.
URL shorteners cause problems. They can lead to anything, a shock site, a rick roll, malware... anything. Want to find that cool item on sale a friend pasted you on your messenger? Good luck identifying it among all the other shortened URLs they sent you unless they took the time to describe what the link is... which they wouldn't have to do if it was the original text.
No, the real "problem" URL shorteners solve is tracking people, and bypassing things like the GDPR.
Remind me why that's a good thing? Who knows what the owner of the shortener does with your collected data!
I've been a professional C, Perl, PHP and Python developer.
I'm an ex-sysadmin from the late 20th century.
These days I do more Javascript and CSS and whatnot, and promote UX and accessibility.
Whenever I use Bitly I always customize the slug portion at the end to be more readable and relevant. That way you get the best of both words, short and readable.
It also helps me remember what the shortened link is pointing to
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I don't like them, in general.
In my own software I try to avoid making long URLs in the first place.
There's no reason that something readable like
https://mycoolsite.website/blog/2020/01/01/my-new-years-resolutionsshould be considered a "nightmare". If you're sharing a bit.ly URL with someone else, then you have to paste it to them or speak "doublyew, m for mother, no, EMMM I said, can you hear me?" the same as any random string.And long strings with a million query parameters are usually deep links to things like search results which are inherently fragile. And speaking of fragile, you're adding an extra point of failure for no good reason.
When including the link on a page you control, you'll probably put the name of the destination page or something descriptive in as the text link, so that's not a problem.
URL shorteners cause problems. They can lead to anything, a shock site, a rick roll, malware... anything. Want to find that cool item on sale a friend pasted you on your messenger? Good luck identifying it among all the other shortened URLs they sent you unless they took the time to describe what the link is... which they wouldn't have to do if it was the original text.
No, the real "problem" URL shorteners solve is tracking people, and bypassing things like the GDPR.
Remind me why that's a good thing? Who knows what the owner of the shortener does with your collected data!
Good points there 😉💯
Also, if I use a shortened link I always feel unsafe about how long will it work, as it's been handled by a third party 😉
Yeah, that's what I mean by it adding a point of failure :)
Whenever I use Bitly I always customize the slug portion at the end to be more readable and relevant. That way you get the best of both words, short and readable.
It also helps me remember what the shortened link is pointing to